I was surprised to see my question downvoted. I care less about the loss of rep than about why the person might have done it. Can you find anything wrong with the question? Do you think the person didn't like my presumption that "DD's" is a convention, instead of mere style?
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Hm. I don't see a single downvote on that question. But I do see two upvotes.– RegDwigнtFeb 3, 2011 at 18:23
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@reg likely the person changed their mind within 5min?– tshepangFeb 3, 2011 at 18:30
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That, or after you have edited the question to explain. (And I applaud both your edit and his changing his mind.)– RegDwigнtFeb 3, 2011 at 18:32
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@reg Yeah. That could very well be. Thanks for the applause :)– tshepangFeb 3, 2011 at 18:33
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4I think one downvote hardly calls for its own question on meta.– AdamFeb 6, 2011 at 18:44
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@adv Actually it was worth it for me. I'm very interested in why anyone would give my post a downvote, partly due to curiosity, and partly so I can fix whatever sucked about it.– tshepangFeb 6, 2011 at 20:05
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3 Answers
Could be that your question reads as if the apostrophe-based usage is correct/acceptable.
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See my last sentence: Do you think the person didn't like my presumption that "DD's" is a convention, instead of mere style?– tshepangFeb 3, 2011 at 17:30
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1@Tshepang: Hmm. "Convention vs. style" doesn't mean the same as "correct vs. incorrect" or "good usage vs. poor usage" to me.– chaosFeb 3, 2011 at 17:34
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Looking at your question again, you ask "how did things come to that". That sounds like you're speaking of the correct usage having become the one you're talking about. If you said something like "why did people start doing this", it would read quite a bit differently in terms of how you're talking about the usage, but I think still convey what you were actually trying to say.– chaosFeb 3, 2011 at 17:37
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I actually thought that's how things were, that "DDs" was incorrect usage. That's apparently mistaken, but I'm sure you'd agree that it doesn't deserve a downvote, just correction. But that's another argument of course.– tshepangFeb 3, 2011 at 17:39
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@Tshepang: This is probably the best guess as to why it was downvoted, but as a mod I can tell you that the question overall is not poor (and I personally would not have downvoted it). Feb 3, 2011 at 17:42
I have seen questions being down voted simply because they were duplicate of other questions; in other cases, the question was down voted because the user didn't like it.
In this specific case, I cannot say which reason would be more plausible.
I didn't downvote your question, but for the mention, I tend to downvote heavily. Well, I don't feel too bad about it, as I think it's how the good questions rise to the top, and how bad questions go down to be forgotten and never displayed again. Lots of people vote, it's common for a question to get 5 upvotes, so one downvote is not the end of the world. It's the a big part of the way other users can give feedback, other than flagging for various reasons.
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Whoever said it's the end of the world? I explained that I didn't care much for the loss in rep. I was merely curious what others thought might have motivated that downvote, perhaps so I can improve my question asking skillz in future :)– tshepangFeb 3, 2011 at 19:35
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Well, I don't really see that it justifies opening a thread on meta. You could ask in the comments of the question itself, if people didn't explain. | Also, my answer is not solely a reaction to your question, but to the fact that there are recurrent questions here on meta on the theme “what with the downvote?”. I am merely suggesting that downvoting is a natural part of the process.– F'xFeb 3, 2011 at 19:38
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To add a few more info to this, I looked at my profile and I have a 5:1 upvotes to downvotes ratio. Just to add some numbers to my rant above :)– F'xFeb 3, 2011 at 19:40
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3FX_: At least, I hope that whenever you downvote you give a reason for doing so, for the benefit of the poster.– Jimi OkeFeb 8, 2011 at 2:07
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+1 to you, Jimi. My post on "Be under no illusion" was voted up then down with no accompanying explanation, and I cried myself to sleep that night. Given the stated desire of this site's designers to make it the best it can be, I'd have thought nameless and unsupported rejections would contradict the spirit of the enterprise -the true grit of certain veterans notwithstanding. Feb 12, 2011 at 3:48